


The Sun Has Risen, Stay With Me

by TillysTealeaves



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Disability shaming, F/M, Insecure Jaime, Morning After, but it's okay brienne does too, emotionally abusive cersei, insecure Brienne, jaime has issues, past twincest, season 8 is a lie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23452147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TillysTealeaves/pseuds/TillysTealeaves
Summary: After defeating the dead and finally spending the night together, Jaime and Brienne have another enemy to battle- their own insecurities. Angst with a happy ending for this lovely couple, because they deserve all the happiness.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 5
Kudos: 137





	The Sun Has Risen, Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Quarantine Day 20.
> 
> I woke up this morning and this idea waltzed into my head, already fairly well formed. So I grabbed my phone and sat in bed for two hours, typing it up on my phone notes. 
> 
> Jaime and Brienne. What can I say? They’re both wonderful. They both deserve better. Season 8 isn’t real.
> 
> Whatever the circumstances of when they finally get together, I would imagine both of their mountains of insecurities would make the morning after quite a struggle. This is my take on how it would go in the Season 8 universe. (Which, you know, didn’t happen.)
> 
> So here you have it. Hope you enjoy their angsty, fluffy love.

When Jaime woke, he spent a long moment simply lying still in the surprisingly comfortable bed, savoring what was surely the sweetest morning of his life. He was sore from the battle against the dead, yes. And his head throbbed a bit from the amount of wine he’d had. How had he not yet learned that playing drinking games with Tyrion was a terrible idea? But he was alive. He was far from King’s Landing, in a place where he has found a surprising number of friends and comrades.

And he had woken in the bed of the woman he loved.

Never before had he spent the entire night in Cersei’s bed, always too afraid of being caught. But that had been Cersei’s burden, too. When they were younger, they would stretch out the moments they could stay in each other’s arms, and the parting was difficult for them both. And though of course it had been hard, it hadn’t stung nearly as much as their current dynamic.

Jaime had realized over time, agonizingly and wishing every moment for it not to be true, that the Cersei he loved no longer existed. Loving each other in mutual silence was one thing, but Cersei treated him like nothing more than a tool, a sword to wield at her enemies and a source for pleasure when her body demanded it.

For years, Jaime had told himself that he loved her anyway. That he had no choice but to love her anyway. He was so devoted to his twin that he hadn’t even noticed when his heart started to make room for someone else.

Of course, he still loved Cersei. He would always love Cersei. But Jaime had learned that he could love more than one person- and that his was a love that required reciprocation. Brienne saw that in him. Brienne saw so much in him that he thought wasn’t there to be seen anymore.

And he was here, in her bed, and she was right beside him. He stretched out with his left arm, keeping his right close to his body.

The bed was empty.

He told himself she had just gotten up to put more wood on the fire. She had gone to relieve herself. She would be there when he opened his eyes.

She was there. Facing away from him, barefoot, wearing her trousers ( _he’d unlaced them with his teeth last night_ , his brain unhelpfully supplied), and lacing up her shirt. She was leaving, getting dressed as quietly as she could so as not to wake him.

So he’d wake up alone.

As he always did.

“Leaving, wench?” He pushed himself into a half-sitting position as he spoke, leaning on his right arm. He made sure the furs on the bed covered his stump, as his awful golden hand lay on the bedside table, where she had left it last night. _She’d been so gentle when she took it off. Nothing like Cersei, who always made him feel so ugly if his arm even got close to her._

Brienne froze, then turned to face him, straightening into her most controlled soldier-like posture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

“Obviously. You preferred to just slip out without speaking to me at all. Not very honorable of you, is it, ser?” He wished he could have managed not to toss an insult at her, to conduct himself as if her leaving was of no concern. But gods, just moments ago he had thought… 

“I thought we would both prefer to avoid the awkward discussion of this morning, Ser Jaime.” Her tone was clipped and formal, but he could see the hurt in her eyes. What right did she have to feel hurt? She was the one who was leaving. 

“Ah, yes of course,” Jaime drawled, his tone cruel and mocking as it hadn’t been for years when speaking to Brienne. “The uncomfortable statements such as, ‘Well that was an enjoyable evening, but remember it was fueled by alcohol and the sheer relief of somehow surviving. It won’t happen again’.” 

“Yes, precisely that,” Brienne replied. She was staring at the fireplace now, her jaw set. She was embarrassed to be called out so bluntly, it was clear. But Jaime wasn’t going to let her off so easily. No, she had tricked him. Tricked him into thinking that she was different. That she was kind. That she was honorable. That she cared about others. But she’d used him as a toy, a pleasurable way to lose her maidenhead. Because clearly that was all he was fit to be for the women he loved. 

“Or perhaps,” he continued, “you were trying to avoid the statement, ‘It was fun Ser Jaime, but I couldn’t possibly want to spend more than one night in the bed of a crippled old man, a maimed lion at a traveling faire.’ Or was it, ‘I didn’t mind your reputation when I was more than a little tipsy, but in the light of day, I’m rather embarrassed to have lain with such a man as you’?” 

Now Brienne’s face was twisted in some sort of horrible attempt to subdue her emotions. She looked as if she were about to cry. Jaime refused to feel sorry for her. She could have simply sent him away last night. Gods knew his attempts at flirting had been so embarrassingly clumsy, she should have sent him away. But she’d allowed him to share the night with her, and gotten tired of him in just a few hours’ time. She would get no sympathy for that. 

“I realized the foolishness of my behavior last night the moment I awoke, Ser Jaime.” Oh, she sounded so miserable. For a moment, Jaime felt guilty. Did she regret their night so terribly? Had she perhaps been too drunk to assess what she was doing? “But no, those absurd objections you just raised were not on my list of concerns. I was much more focused on avoiding conversations such as, ‘Gods, you’re even more hideous than I imagined. In the dark last night, it was alright, but in the day?’ Or perhaps, ‘I’ve spent my whole life in the arms of the most beautiful woman in Westeros. How tragically ironic that I should get drunk and end up falling into bed with the ugliest?’ Or the worst- pity. ‘Wench I’m so sorry but you must know I didn’t mean anything by it. It was fun though, yes?’ So I thought it better to just be on my way this morning. And I hope, Ser Jaime, that things can still be civil between us.” 

“You cannot be serious,” Jaime stated flatly. She couldn’t be. She had to have seen how desperate he was just to touch her the night before. How he curled against her afterwards, how he put his good arm around her waist. How she’d helped him become something he thought he couldn’t be anymore. How she made the entire failure that was his life somehow hurt just a bit less. 

“I am serious. I think we work well together, Ser Jaime, and I believe it would be best if we could carry on-” 

“No not about being civil,” Jaime interrupted. “Gods, wench. ‘Falling into bed with the ugliest woman’? Aside from the fact that it’s false- no one with eyes like yours could be the ugliest anything- do you honestly think I would do that? Fall into bed with anyone?” 

“It’s common practice, especially from soldiers after a victory.” She looked at her feet as she spoke, clearly embarrassed. 

“And since when have I followed common practice?” Jaime sat up straighter in the bed, still keeping his chest mostly covered by the fur blankets. Of course, he kept his mangled right arm carefully tucked away. “Brienne, you just said it yourself. I’ve spent my entire life having slept with only one woman. Do you think there haven’t been other options? Barmaids, girls of noble birth, quick fucks after a battle, prospective wives? I turned them all down.” 

She didn’t seem to know what to do with that, but he had nothing more to add. If she couldn’t see it then it was because she didn’t wish to, and it was back to a matter of her not wanting him. When the silence had stretched so painfully long that he was about to encourage her to be on her way, she spoke. “Then you- you chose me deliberately. You wanted to spend the night with me.” She sounded so genuinely confused that it made his heart ache. 

“Tyrion says I’m embarrassing. How I pine for you. I’d rather do that than behave like Tormund Giantsbane. Unless you want me to go around asking everyone if they’ve seen the Big Woman?” She laughed at that. Just a small chuckle, but it was better than the sorrow that had been radiating off of her throughout this conversation. “Honestly, I’m quite sure that Tyrion deliberately provoked us last night so I’d have the courage to come to you.” 

“And why would you need courage to come to me?” 

“For the reasons I gave when suggesting conversations I thought you were trying to avoid.” 

"You were serious about that?” Now she was upset again, but indignantly so, and Jaime supposed that was better than fighting back tears. “What, that you’re old and crippled and dishonorable? Is that truly what you believe I think of you? Gods, Jaime, is it what you think of yourself?” 

She walked towards him, stopping just at the edge of the bed, but not sitting. He wished she would just come sit beside him. He wished he could touch her again. 

"You are none of those things. What crippled old man could survive a fight against the dead, first off? And no dishonorable person would leave his home to fight in a battle that seemed impossible to win.” 

She was so noble, so good, and that was why he loved her. But sometimes it made her terribly oblivious. He often liked to point those moments out in an attempt to irritate her. He knew it was perhaps a bit wrong to find her so charming when she was annoyed at him. Now, however, he prayed to the old gods and the new that pointing out his decidedly less-than-noble reasoning wouldn’t upset her. 

“I didn’t come north because it was the right thing to do. I did it because I was following you. I couldn’t let you fight this battle and not be by your side. And I... well simply put, I wanted to be here with you.” 

She stared at him like he was a rather difficult puzzle. He watched as she tried to put the pieces together. Finally, she simply said, “Oh.” 

Oh. She understood. She knew now that this one-handed, incestuous oathbreaker loved her. He held his breath without realizing it, waiting for her to leave. 

She stepped back, turned away from him, unlaced her trousers, and slid back into bed wearing her tunic as a nightshirt. “You didn’t want me to leave, then?” 

She tried to make it a statement but he could hear the hesitation in her voice. He swore to himself that he would chase away all of her doubts. 

“Not ever.” 

“Alright then,” she replied, pulling him close. Her hand ran down his right arm. He flinched when she reached his stump but she didn’t allow him to pull away. Her smile wavered for a moment and she gave his forearm a gentle squeeze. For a moment, Jaime thought he would literally burst from the love coursing through him. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then another to her soft lips. “I’ll stay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, friends! I have a larger GoT story in the works that I’m going to post… eventually.
> 
> Come say hi on Instagram, @ argylebestiaryco. We can talk about knighthood and love and saving the world. Also I knit plushie mythical creatures.


End file.
